Chapter 533 – The Chase
Chapter 533 The Chase
Heidi followed the staff member in the dark blue uniform towards another ward inside the medical facility, all the while listening to the other person explaining the situation to herself along the way-
“That ‘patient’ woke up first and found you passed out next to the hospital bed, she ran down the corridor to call for help, and that’s how we knew something had happened in the ward ……
“Because you instructed us to do so before, we first had the church’s guards and resident priests check the vicinity of the ward, but found no signs of contamination by transcendent forces, only that you had been asleep …… We moved you to a ward closer to the chapel… …
“The elf girl remains in the facility, she is in good spirits but does not seem to remember what happened in her dream, nor can she say she understands how she suddenly fell into a coma, we have asked her to stay a little longer for the time being, perhaps you have something to ask her.
“Her family is also present, if there is anything you can ask ……”
The staff member suddenly stopped, with a slight hesitation on her face, and turned her head to look at Heidi: “I’m sorry, I forgot that you have also just awakened from your slumber, you need to rest now ……”
“I don’t need to rest, this sleep has already been long enough,” Heidi waved her hand, but her gaze could not always help sweeping around the other party’s face, but fortunately she quickly controlled her expression and gaze, and then asked as if she did not think about it, “Before you came in, was there any strange movement?”
“Strange movements?” The staff member frowned in thought and shook his head, “No. Did something happen?”
There had been an uninvited guest that had invaded the ward through a rift in the timeline – and then left with a bunch of godawful words.
Heidi’s mind recalled what had just happened, but quickly shook her head and said with a calm face, “No, just asking to make sure that nothing unusual had happened in the room during her slumber.”
The “staff” in front of her was just an ordinary person in charge of docking, while that mysterious final preacher gave Heidi a feeling that it was too weird, so out of prudence, it would be best not to spread the matter about that “preacher” to the ears of ordinary people.
When they returned, they should report directly to the church, or the central cathedral of the city-state.
Perhaps she should also tell her father, and the …… Captain Duncan?
Heidi’s mind was spinning with all sorts of thoughts, some of which even made her feel a little frightened, and along with all these thoughts, she was already being led to the end of the corridor.
The staff member in charge of leading the way did some brief handoffs and left silently, while Heidi took a deep breath in front of the ward, quickly composing herself and her expression, and then reached out and pushed open the door to the room.
In the clean and bright ward, the elf girl who had fallen into a deep sleep before was quietly sitting on the bed, leaning against the quilt and pillow behind her, holding a book in her hand and reading carefully, while a fat and kind-looking old elf woman was sitting on the edge of the bed, peeling apples seriously.
When Heidi walked into the room, the elf girl immediately raised her head, and immediately after that, her face blossomed into a bright smile, ”Ah! Ms. Doctor! You’re awake?”
“I’ve come to check on you,” Heidi returned the smile, nodding her head in greeting to that kind looking old elf woman as she walked towards the hospital bed, “Hello, may I ask who you are ……”
“She’s my grandmother!” The elf girl in the hospital bed snaps.
The old woman helplessly glanced at her granddaughter, turned her head to Heidi and spoke with a smile, “This child is a bit self-conscious …… Thank you very much for helping Fluttershy, Miss Heidi.”
A trace of embarrassment surfaced on Heidi’s face, “It doesn’t feel like I helped too much, the ‘doctor’ in me fell into a deep sleep.”
“But I heard from the staff over here that you fell into a slumber in order to wake Fluttershy from her nightmare,” the old woman handed Heidi a freshly peeled apple with a warm and sincere attitude that didn’t seem like a courtesy at all, “And Fluttershy also said that in her sleep, she felt that someone was protecting herself-when danger approached, there was a succession of gunshots that dispelled her fears.”
Continuous gunfire? Approaching danger? Referring to the Annihilationist who tried to approach the hospital bed by relying on the “implied portal” he opened when the dream backfired?
Heidi’s mind instantly had a guess, she expressed her gratitude to the apple handed over by the old woman, and then sat on the chair beside the hospital bed, looking at the elf girl named Fluttershy very seriously: “Your name is Fluttershy, right? Do you remember how you fell into a deep sleep?”
“I remember …… I was reading a book at home,” Flottie frowned in thought, “Before the sun went out, my grandmother said that the streets were dangerous and told me to stay honestly in my room, then the sun came back on and I was really bored I was bored, so I found a book to read – after all, the sun had already lit up, but I don’t know what happened, but after reading for a while I suddenly felt very sleepy and fell asleep ……”
“Reading a book?”
Heidi muttered, her eyes sweeping over the book Fluttershy had just held in her hands, and on the lavender cover, a string of ornate letters caught her eye – The Crystal Garden of the Dreamless Prince
“If you ask me, she reads these messy books to read,” that chubby old elf lady chimed in from the side, “full of unreliable fantasies, sooner or later she’s going to be tainted by reading these things, the gods won’t shelter a romance between two men ……”
Fluttershy instantly corrected beside her in dissatisfaction, “Not two, but several!”
Heidi, on the other hand, shook her head at the old woman, “Don’t worry, it’s not the contents of this book that caused this.” As soon as her words left her mouth, Fluttershy revealed a look of surprise, “Doctor sister you read this too?!”
Heidi: “……”
With her exquisite skills practiced over the years, Miss Psychiatrist ignored the instantly varying looks of Fluttershy and her grandmother, and instead looked at the elf maiden with a serious face, “In a nutshell, you didn’t try to look at the surface of the sun or look at the sky during the time it was out?”
“Of course, who would dare na,” Fluttershy spat out at once, “What sane person would dare to look around while the sun was out?”
Heidi’s face was expressionless, and she asked immediately afterward, “Do you remember anything that happened during your slumber? A little memory would be fine – except for the part about the ‘gunshot’, which I know.”
“…… I really only have a little recollection of anything other than the gunshots,” Fluttershy said with less certainty as she carefully recalled them, “I just remember lying in the dark all the time, groggy and unable to see around me or to I couldn’t hear voices, and in the darkness there were many, many shadows, like other people, all standing around me ……”
Heidi’s expression immediately became serious: “Many, many shadows?”
……
Deep in the Boundless Sea, in a city-state far away from Prand and Lightwind Harbor, a figure clad in a thick black coat hurriedly flashed into an alley.
This figure was in a hurry, with a slightly stumbling gait, and seemed to be in a bit of a panic, as he dodged any prying eyes that might exist at the entrance of the alley, and dug into one fork in the road after another, and after a long time of drilling in the labyrinthine alleyway that was enough to make people lose their way, he finally dodged into a house.
It was nearing dusk, the sun’s remaining light was fading from the city, and before the gas lamps in the streets were lit, the dimness had come down a step earlier and was gradually submerging one of the houses in the city-state.
The snick of a match being struck came, and the oil lamps of the houses were lighted.
The man threw his heavy black coat over the arm of the couch, and went to the liquor cabinet, taking out a bottle of spirits and filling himself a glass, carrying it to the couch and sitting down, drinking half of the glass in one gulp before taking a long breath of relief at the slight sense of security brought by the oil lamp.
Effectively stimulating his taste buds and nerves with the strong alcohol, soothing the frightening pressure that seemed to nag at him as if it were in his bones, he once again felt courage and vitality return to this body, and his somewhat cold hands and feet warmed up again.
The slight sound of chains rubbing together reached his ears, behind the man, a dark chain slowly emerged from the air, one end of the chain was attached to him, while the other end bound a jellyfish floating in mid-air, as if it was made of soot and dust.
This chaotic and unintelligent demon took shape, unconsciously rising and shrinking and writhing in mid-air, transmitting a restless signal to the man.
“I know, I know, we almost ran into big trouble,” the man grunted with some annoyance, he knew that the Spectral Demon had no heart and couldn’t understand human language, but after many years of living in symbiosis with the demon, he had unconsciously developed the habit of conversing with his own Spectral Demon, as if this dangerous cloud of soot was really his own trustworthy family and friends in general, “Who knows how that cursed captain suddenly appeared …… Damn, what does this matter have to do with him ……”
He put down the wine glass in his hand and leaned back on the sofa raising his head, his eyes unfocused on the roof, indignation in his tone.
“Those retarded general sun remnants are also all useless, even that ‘witch’ can’t be dealt with …… ch ch ch, the bottom believers are all retarded, and the ones called ‘messenger ‘s also just a group of brainless remnants, the so-called sun children are also just some puppets that can’t think …… That group of sun believers, from top to bottom can’t find a few intellectually intact, almost killed by them …… “
He grunted, getting up and picking up his glass of wine, taking two more hard gulps, feeling his heartbeat gradually calming down, then turning his head and glancing at his symbiotic demon.
“Be quiet, we’re safe now, we’ll find another opportunity after this, and if those goddamned preachers are right, more elves will be affected by the ‘original flaw’ soon enough, and there’s always a chance we’ll find another way into that dream world… …”
He stopped abruptly.
The soot jellyfish was rising and shrinking and writhing in the air, sending increasingly disturbing signals to its own symbiote, and the man seemed to gradually sense what was going on – his dulled psychic intuition was finally beginning to signal an alarm, and in a round of stronger-than-expected feelings of fear, his perception finally broke through his subconscious self-protection and began to perceive the …… that close gaze.
“Gulp,” the man gulped, and his gaze drifted downward.
He looked to the glass in his hand.
The residual liquid in the glass swayed slightly, reflecting the flickering light of the oil lamp, and under the eerie green glow of the lamplight, a somber and majestic face was reflected in the glass, gazing at him calmly.
“Go on,” he heard the disembodied voice echo in his own mind, as if it were his own thoughts, “I like people who have a habit of talking to themselves.”
(End of chapter)